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Monday, March 31, 2014

Last spring I unintentionally killed my white Poppies while moving them. It is one of my spring early bloomers and I am missing it this year. I made my own and used it in a birthday card which I would like to enter into the Mojo Monday challenge #339. I just turned the sketch on it's side.

At some point in her crafty life, Clare would love to try ribbon embroidery. She recently found some fabulous French Ombre ribbon flowers on Etsy at a store called Grandmas Flower Garden. Clare hopes to try this technique some day, but just can't add anymore stashes, to the stashes she already has. And she loves to save money by making her own with supplies she already has! So that got her thinking...why can't she try this look with paper and Art Glitter!?
You can see the ribbon flower below.

Clare started by painting the ombre first. For the Yellow flower and pink flower she used Tombow markers and a small water color brush. For the purple flower and the leaves she used the Copic markers.

She cut the rosette shapes after coloring to prevent the color from collecting in the perforation marks. She then trimmed the ends of the rosettes clipping from the end in 10 folds along a curve.

She folded the rosettes and then bent them to get the look of the ribbon. Once Clare had a petal she liked, she hot glued them to a small leaf she punched with a Creative Memories leaf punch. For each flower she colored and cut 5 rosettes to make petals. She then glued the five petals onto a circle of card stock and pinched the rosette folds again. So, Clare glued each petal first, and then glued then to form the flower.

Once the hot glue was dry, Clare used the Art Glitter dries clear adhesive and a matching Art Glitter to edge the ends of the petals. The yellow flower uses Bananan, the pink Hibiscus, and the Purple is Purple glitter.

For the center of the larger flowers, Clare used a shank button in the center of the flower and covered it with Art Glitter Gala Glitz. Since one of her buttons was fabric Clare used the Art Glitter Dries Clear fabric glue on that one.

The Red Gala Glitz is in the center of the yellow flower and the Pink Gala Glitz is in the center of the Pink flower. In the center of the purple flower, she used a paper flower and a vintage button. For the smaller purple flower, Clare used the Tim Holtz snowflake rosette die and trimmed off the spikes.

For the leaves, Clare cut the rosette at every fifth fold and trimmed it down to form the leaves.

Friday, March 28, 2014

My family has a favorite chocolate chip banana muffin recipe and the secret to the moist muffins is mayonnaise. So I wanted to convert this recipe to a gluten free and almost sugar free option for myself. It worked! I say almost sugar free because I used Stevia in the dry ingredients, but there is sugar in the semi sweet chocolate chips.

Mix together dry ingredients. Mash bananas and added to dry ingredients, mix well and add 1/2 c Mayo and mix well. Add chips and nuts (if desired). Spoon into cupcake liners in muffin baking pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees. I have included a photo below of the wheat muffin (right) next to the rice/millet muffin (left). Notice how the gluten free flour does not brown as well, but don't worry it's done if you get a clean toothpick out of the baked center!

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

With the slow down of the economy and the scrap booking industry, I have stopped stocking my Etsy store and only make covers for custom orders. I just had a custom order for two dust covers and two scrap bags. I love the colors and fabrics the customer chose and have to share the finished photos. The photo above is for a Cricut Expression Cover and the photo below is the Cuttlebug. I make a hole for the Cuttlebug handle to stick out of the cover using a large grommet. And finally, a photo of the scrap bag.

Clare has always wanted a welcome sign for her front entry. She has been inspired by a fellow Art Glitter Design Team member to use Art Glitter with her Cameo cutting machine in her projects. She also thinks is perfect project for the glitter newbie! She started by typing the word welcome using the Brush Script MT font and welding the letters.

Clare cut the word in paper to use as a stencil. Using a canvas 28 x 22 inch white canvas she got got at Michaels using a coupon, Clare applied her template using a tape runner.
She then used a foam brush to apply the Dreamweaver Embossing Paste to the canvas over the stencil openings. Clare thought the Art Glitter glue would dry too quickly on this project and before she could apply the Art Glitter, so she used an embossing paste. She also applied the paste on three letters at a time, so that it would not dry before she applied the glitter. She also applied some embossing paste free hand at either end of the word so that the word went off the side of the frame. After all the glitter was applied and before the paste dried she carefully removed her template. She allowed it to dry overnight and brushed off excess glitter with a dry paint brush. Since the canvas held some of the excess glitter after brushing, she also used some clear tape to remove lose glitter not part of the design. Clare love the simplicity and beauty of this home décor project. So get out the Art Glitter and give it a try!

Every year we visit South West Michigan and stay in a beach community called Palisades Park. The community owns and will never develop a large piece of critical dunes. This is my page for the boys to remember. I chose to use a hummingbird because their are many hummingbirds in the critical dunes habitat. I also LOVE the Art Nouveau flowers. I made a frame with two of the bracket cuts and added some of the Robin's Nest Tear Drops to the un-opened flowers.

For the hummingbird, I cut the wings using the Art Glitter Fantasy Film. The Fantasy Film will break in a standard metal die, but cuts like a dream in the Cricut! I just used the pressure dial on a 2. Isn't this perfect for the iridescent wings and end of the tail on the hummingbird!?
The title is made with Opposites Attract and Basic Grey Stickers.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Every year I struggle to make a St. Patrick's Day card for my brother's birthday. There are not a lot of St. Patrick's Day images for the digital cutters that work for a male in my opinion. So this year while thinking on my dilemma, I recalled the Irish blessing had a line about the road and my brother's fondness for Ford Mustangs. I did a search for Ford Mustang SVG's and found a shop on Etsy that had some called CraftyVectors. And they take custom orders, so I got an SVG stashed away for my hubby with his favorite car too!

To make the card, I typed the blessing in the Silhouette software and just printed it. Then I cut the SVG from CraftyVectors. The leaves are Silhouette and the circle is Creative Memories. Inside the card, it says Happy Birthday!

~Design Team Inspiration~

To qualify for the prize, be sure to use at least 1 Cricut cut on your project and if it's not obvious, let us know what cartridge you used.

For my project this week, I made another card for one of my sisters. I have been working on a card for each of them this year that lets them know how much I admire them. The honeycomb print and the little blue check in the "You" label are both made with Cricut Imagine Yummy. The "You" is actually part of Cricut Creative Memories Divine Wedding cartridge, I just hid the words "It had to be" above"you" and replaced it with" I admire" from the Cricut Calligraphy cart. The admire and you are printed ONLY. I love using the Imagine for a multiple project like this, I will make each of my six sisters a card. Here is a link to one of my other sister cards using the same "I admire you" label in a totally different card.

For the doily cut I used Winter Lace and hid the inside cuts for most of the snowflake on my Gypsy so that it appeared to just have a lacy border. I then cut the mat piece using Art Glitter Sticky paper. I pealed off the protective layer and covered it in Art Glitter 234 Turquoise Ultrafine Opaque Glitter. This is a great way to add special touch to your Cricut cuts! I cut the doily layer and the rest of the card using K and Company paper.

Monday, March 3, 2014

My husband and I will be celebrating 21 years of marriage and I needed an anniversary card. In an effort to improve my cards, I sometimes go on Pinterest for inspiration. I recently did a search for a Cricut Anniversary card and found the fabulous window with couple card. You can find Donna Mundinger's card and all of the card details here. It is so fabulous, I almost scraplifted it verbatim! But then I thought, why not see what other Cricut couples and windows might make a fabulous card? The card above is my version, with a couple from Creative Memories Devine Wedding and the window from Ornamental Iron.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

I wanted to try another version of the cut I used in my last post with a quilted look. I was inspired by the card pictured below. You can see Betty's card details here.

I used some K and Company paper my my stash of scraps. The stamp is from the Eloquence Set listed in the post below. The label is cut with Cricut Artiste. To see my other version of the cut scroll down to the previous post!